And now I must face the inert hours. I sat down, and read my way through the _Mercury_. "The escaped French soldier, Champdivers, who is wanted in connection with the recent horrid murder at the Castle, remains at large--" the rest but repeated the advertisement of Tuesday. "At large!" I set down the paper and turned to my landlady's library. It consisted of Derham's "Physico- and Astro-Theology," "The Scripture Doctrine of Original Sin," by one Taylor, D.D., "The Ready Reckoner or Tradesman's Sure Guide," and "The Path to the Pit delineated, with Twelve Engravings on Copper-plate." For distraction I fell to pacing the room, and rehearsing those remembered tags of Latin verse concerning which M. de Culemberg had long ago assured me, "My son, we know not when, but some day they will come back to you with solace if not with charm." Good man! My feet trod the carpet to Horace's Alcaics. _Virtus recludensim meritis mori Coelum_--h'm, h'm--_raro_-- _raro antecedentem scelestum deseruit pede Poena claudo._ I paused by the window. In this there was no indiscretion; for a cold drizzle washed the panes, and the warmth of the apartment dimmed their inner surface. "_Pede Poena claudo_," my finger traced the words on the damp glass. A sudden clamour of the street-door bell sent me skipping back to the fire-place with my heart in my mouth. Interminable minutes followed, and at length Mrs. McRankine entered with my ball suit from the tailor's. I carried it into the next room, and disposed it on the bed--olive-green coat with gilt buttons and facings of watered silk, olive-green pantaloons, white waistcoat sprigged with blue and green forget-me-nots. The survey carried me on to midday and the midday meal. The ministry of meal-time is twice blest: for prisoners and men without appetite it punctuates and makes time of eternity. I dawdled over my chop and pint of brown stout until Mrs. McRankine, after twice entering to clear away, with the face of a Cumaean sibyl, so far relaxed the tension of unnatural calm as to inquire if I meant to be all night about it. The afternoon wore into dusk; and with dusk she re-appeared with a tea-tray. At six I retired to dress. Behold me now issuing from my chamber, conscious of a well-fitting coat and a shapely pair of legs: the dignified simplicity of my _tournure_ (simplicity so proper to the scion of an exiled house) relieved by a dandiacal hint of shirt-frill, and corrected into tenderness by the virgin waistcoat sprigged with forget-me-nots (for constancy), and buttoned with pink coral (for hope). Satisfied of the effect, I sought the apartment of Mr. Rowley of the Rueful Countenance, and found him less yellow, but still contrite, and listening to Mrs. McRankine, who sat with open book by his bedside, and plied him with pertinent dehortations from the Book of Proverbs. He brightened. "My heye, Mr. Hann, if that ain't up to the knocker!" Mrs. McRankine closed the book, and conned me with austerer approval.